Clause 6 - Abolition of magistrates'
Courts Bill [Lords]
3:45 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I share the hon. Gentleman's views. Whenever a new system is created, some expertise from the past is assuredly helpful. I regret that the Government's response to Sir Robin Auld's report on magistrates courts committees was to decide that they had to abolish the old and bring in something completely new. As a matter of general principle I have always believed in the maxim, ''If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' I am not convinced that something as quintessentially English as magistrates courts committees need wholesale reform.
Much of what was in the Auld report said that there were some differences in the ways in which magistrates courts committees did things because they were left to devise their own procedures and forms of implementing legislation and Government policy.
As we have already said, and as the hon. Gentleman pointed out this morning, the reason why that tended to work was that there are vast differences between different parts of the UK. The die has long since been cast, so I shall not challenge the entire basis of the Bill at this late stage—but I did not want the clause dealing with the abolition of those bodies to pass without at least placing on the record our recognition of the huge amount of work that has been done successfully in the past by members of the magistrates courts committees.
I am not sure that we will find that by creating a new kind of bureaucratic monster, the Government are addressing some of the problems that Sir Robin Auld referred to in respect of the shortage of funding, accounting arrangements and gaps in coverage that were found during inspections. I have a feeling that the same sort of failings will apply to the new system. Just because we want administrative consistency, we should not tear up something that was quintessentially English and replace it with a new bureaucracy—but that is my personal expression of regret. I want to place on record the view of the Conservative party that we must pay tribute to the hard work done by lay magistrates who give up their time to be magistrates and to sit on magistrates courts committees. It is
important that that work should be recognised publicly.